Cherish Your Ghosts
by KatieThomas'95
Summary: A short one-shot between Peter and Gamora that takes place a couple of hours before the final scene of Volume 2. (SPOILERS FOR VOL2)


A/N I loved guardians vol2, and i love how brilliantly all the characters were fleshed out. This is just a short scene I like to imagine happened between Yondu's death and his funeral.

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Gamora's boots left a metallic echo in the corridor as she walked towards her quarters. It had been less than 24 hours since their fated visit to Ego's planet. Her fingers probed at her ribs, feeling out which had healed and to what extent. The explosion of the stolen Ravager craft had broken three ribs; while still painful, the bones had mostly reknitted thanks to her body-mods. She sighed and switched to massaging her neck, but smiled gently as she rounded the corner to see Groot sitting on the walkway railing.

"Hey, little man." She said, crouching down in front of him. "You doing okay?"

Groot shrugged a little. He looked pretty miserable. "I am Groot."

"I know, it's been a scary few days." She replied. Groot was more intelligent that people gave him credit for, in his own way, and could have a temper to match Rocket's, but sometimes it was easy to forget how young he was.

"I am Groot?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." She smiled again. Of all the events of the last few days, it was Mantis who had left her shaken. The woman's abilities had left her very much on edge. "Come on, let's get you something to eat." She said, but as she reached for him, he blinked and pointed down the corridor. She turned to look. He was pointing at the door to Peter's bunk.

She sighed softly. He'd been in shock when they'd brought him back onto the Milano. He'd knelt by Yondu's body, his forehead bowed against the blue man's chest, and when Rocket had tried to approach, Peter had glared at him with such intensity that the usually insensitive woodland creature had simply backed off. It had taken almost half an hour of Gamora's careful coaxing before Peter finally moved away. When he had, he had been in a daze, his face oddly blank. He had looked around at the team, through the team, at a loss, before turning down the corridor that lead to his bunk. No-one had seen him since.

"Come on." She murmured as Groot climbed into her outstretched hand. She transferred him to her shoulder with practiced ease.

She knocked quietly on Peter's door before opening it. "Peter?" She asked gently. He was sitting on his bunk, staring out the window into the void. He made no indication that he had heard her. "Peter?" She asked again, louder this time. His head turned a fraction in her direction.

Moving to sit next to him on the bunk, she laid her hand on his shoulder. At this, he turned to look at her. His face was tight with grief, barely restrained pain lingering in his eyes. Seeing him, she knew he was trying to bottle everything away, for fear of showing weakness. "You don't need to lock your grief away, Peter." Her voice was no more than a whisper. "There's no shame in showing others when you're hurting."

"You never do." He said coldly, turning his gaze back towards the window.

The accusation stung, but Gamora accepted it. "No." She murmured. She turned to face the void, gathering her thoughts. After a moment she said, "Thanos twisted me into a monster. My life became a battle for survival that shames me to this day. My body was his to modify, my surface thoughts his to know. Only my emotions remained mine and mine alone. So I clung to them, hid them away and nurtured them." She had to force the words past the tightening in her throat, "My grief, my rage, my pain. I treasured them because they were mine, the only remnants of who I had been. Letting them out would have been to expose the only untainted part of me."

She tensed involuntarily at the thought of Mantis' empathic manipulation of her fear on Ego's planet, at how she had amplified it and revealed it for all to see. Peter looked back at her, his brow creasing. Taking a deep breath, she continued. "Even now, the idea of sharing that part of me with anyone…" She trailed off and shook her head. "It doesn't matter. What I'm trying to say is, I've lived through the pain you're feeling now, and if circumstances had been different, I would have wanted the chance to mourn my parents properly, to honour them with my grief. It's all we can do for them, in the end." She smiled sadly, "And I like to believe it would have helped."

Peter's face crumbled, and he turned away as his chest shook with a barely contained sob. His head found his hands as his body crumpled, his face contorted in anguish. She watched as the muscles of his arms and torso clenched, his grief seeking a physical outlet. Tears, until now held back by sheer force of will, finally fell, providing some sweet relief for his agony. Groot climbed over to the crook of Peter's neck and did his best to hug him. Gamora closed her eyes, allowing herself to share in his pain and to cherish the ghost of her own. Wrapping her arms around him, she rocked him gently and held him as he cried.

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A/N as always, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, I'd love to hear what you think


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